When we last saw Lady Gaga at the Xcel Energy Center, the global pop star was midway through a 26-month tour and seemingly at the height of her creative powers. Her sold-out, two-night stand in August 2010 drew tens of thousands of crazed fans, the ones she famously dubbed her "Monsters," and plenty of curious onlookers.

The 26-year-old New Yorker returned to the X on Wednesday, Feb. 6, at a very different place in her career. She hasn't issued any new music in almost two years, while her last charting single landed at the end of 2011. She spent more than half of last year touring the world with the "Born This Way Ball," which finally landed on these shores last month.

While still goofy and gaudy and glamorous, Gaga's current outing also showed plenty of wear and tear around the corners. It was a very different, and not necessarily better, version of what she was selling us back in 2010.

One of the obvious issues was the lack of anything fresh, musically speaking. It's probably safe to assume Gaga's plan was to have her next album in the can by the time her tour hit the States and that she'd be debuting some fresh material on stage. She already has a tattoo of the next album's title, "Artpop." And she did record the "Born This Way" album while on that aforementioned 26-month tour, after all. She was already playing new songs by the time she hit St. Paul in 2010, including one, "Living on the Radio," she has yet to officially release.

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Alas, Wednesday's show was more of a nostalgic look back than a peek into the future. The set list included nearly every song from "Born This Way," including the bonus tracks on the expanded special edition. (Her upbeat synthpop number "The Queen" was the only one missing in action.) She also worked in all of her major pre-2011 hits, including "Just Dance," "Poker Face," "LoveGame," "Telephone" and "Alejandro" among them. She performed her 2009 smash "Bad Romance" a half-dozen songs into the set, earning one of the strongest reactions of the show.

Indeed, the nearly sold-out crowd of more than 14,000 preferred the older stuff, but did perk up for songs such as "Heavy Metal Lover" and "You and I." They also listened reverently during Gaga's many spoken-word interludes, when she spoke of her career struggles, how she missed her dead grandfather and how her Monsters made her what she is today.

She did seem sincere and truly thankful, rare attributes of most arena-level performers. And it was cute when she did her now-famous trick of stopping the show to call one of her fans in the crowd. (A tour sponsor kicked in $5,000 for a St. Paul homeless shelter for an onstage name check.) But after a while, it got to the point where it was, like, "Come on, Gaga. Less talk, more rock.

Minneapolis resident Kaylie Falk, right, in red heels, and her friend Kelsey Forman in black leopard fishnet stockings wait for The Born This Way Ball concert by Lady Gaga at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Wednesday, February 6, 2013. (Pioneer Press: Chris Polydoroff)

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That said, Gaga still does know how to whip up a spectacle, and there was plenty of eye and ear candy throughout the evening. She revived her notorious meat dress and turned it into an entire onstage sequence, complete with a life-sized meat grinder. She rode a customized motorcycle onstage that replicated the "Born This Way" album art. She even gave birth to her dancers, and herself, via an inflatable vagina. More of that next time, please.